Archive for movies

I went to see The Avengers in 3-D on the U.S. opening night, and I was grinning like a fool the whole way through. Here are some reasons why.

1. My favorite t-shirt when I was a kid? The Incredible Hulk. I still have that t-shirt, much faded.

2. My brother read comics when I was a pre-schooler. He kept them in a stack in the bottom of his closet. To me, they were all that was desirable in the universe, lent an aura of coolness because he liked them.

3. I started reading comics, seriously, in high school; before that, I didn’t get an allowance, so had no money to buy any. Before that, two friends in my class used to tell me the stories going on in X-Men.

4. Mostly, X-Men was my superhero fandom, with Daredevil second. The first issue of The Avengers which I sought out and read was a back issue – the one in which Hank McCoy, aka Beast, joined The Avengers. I read many more, subsequently, from different eras, though I didn’t collect it regularly.

5. My mother would drive me to the comics shop every week on new comics day. I love that she did that for me, and would sometimes give me an extra dollar or so if there was something I absolutely had to have but couldn’t afford.

6. I stopped reading comics regularly at some point in college. I just didn’t have time any more, and reading them in big batches at winter break just wasn’t the same as getting a fix every week.

7. I really like print collections of various storylines. You can catch up a lot that way.

8. I remember the character Hawkeye from when I used to buy West Coast Avengers. Later on, I didn’t much like some of the things various writers did with his character, but I always had a thing for archers! (Him and Green Arrow, both.)

9. My favorite song when I was a little kid, thanks to my brother? “Iron Man,” by Black Sabbath.

10. I have never sold my comic collection. Not a single issue. Not even my first edition, mint set of Watchmen.

I saw the Ralph Fiennes-directed movie of “Coriolanus” several weeks ago, in one of our local art-movie theaters. I had never seen the play performed, and had never read it, though I did read a detailed summary ahead of time.
As you can tell from the still, Fiennes chose to use a contemporary setting, and that, I feel, made the movie. The film was shot in eastern Europe, in Belgrade, and all of the soldiers, and the warfare that’s shown, could easily have come from a news report. They wear modern uniforms, carry modern rifles, and are festooned with modern gear as they duck in an out of a grubby, destroyed urban landscape littered with dead or terrified civilians.

Fiennes heightens the modern feel by smoothly working in the use of modern technology. When his character, Caius Martius, is receiving a briefing from a herald in the the original version, the movie translates the herald into a soldier reporting in via Skype. Other narrative summaries happen on television screens, the actors flawlessly reading their Shakespearean lines in the cadence of BBC reporters.

After all the heavy weaponry, it’s shockingly brutal and realistic when Caius Martius and his enemy, Tullus Aufidius, fight each other with knives, struggling and wrestling in the dust. There’s plenty of blood to brighten the olive greens and grays of the main color palette.

All that said, you should see this movie if for no other reason than to witness Vanessa Redgrave as Volumnia, the mother of Caius Martius. She’s incredible, completely ruling the screen every instant she’s on it.

A friend of mine really wanted to see “John Carter” (which really ought to have been titled “A Princess of Mars”), and she talked me and another friend into going with her. I was the only one of us who’d read any of the Barsoom series, though C. had read all of the Tarzan books. My memory of the five or six Barsoom books I read back in high school was vague as to plot, though I did remember loving Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of the Tharks. I remember he seemed to save the day a lot. Also, I’ve always had a thing for sidekicks.
I have been noticing a lot of critical press about the movie, but after viewing the end product, I’m not sure what the actual movie has to do with all that press. It was perfectly fine – not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but very far from the worst. The design was lovely; I thought it felt very true to pulp-era science fiction, in particular the flying ships but also the helmets the Red Martians wore. I’d always imagined the Tharks as being a lot brawnier than most of them were depicted in the movie, though later on some more muscular ones appeared. I also liked how their four arms were animated in ways that made sense to me. The filmakers made an effort to include such rarities as characterization along with the hand-to-hand combat and explosions.

Several excellent actors had secondary parts. Ciarán Hinds, whom I’d recently seen in both “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and “Ghost Rider,” played Tardos Mors, father of Dejah Thoris. Mark Strong, who was also in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” played the evil Matai Shang – he gave the part more gravity than I had expected. James Purfoy played Kantos Kan with a a great sense of humor. I think the best performance in the whole thing was Willem Defoe as Tars Tarkas, with both serious and humorous scenes. I think I got my money’s worth just from those few actors. Plus Woola, the doggie. I mean calot. He was adorable, despite his rather mucus-y tongue.

Some of the 3-D was excellent, and it never felt pasted on. The only time I felt the story moved too slowly was at the beginning, when there was a prologue (I am usually bored by prologues). I realized, however, that I didn’t have much sympathy for John Carter…I found him kind of boring, even with the snatches of his sad past; I think it was mostly because he was at the mercy of Barsoom, and did well just because he happened to be extra-strong there (different gravity, don’cha know). His sole motivation is, first, survival, and second, to go home. Then he gets home just as he decides he wants to stay. Spoiler: in the next book, he gets back. *yawn*

I wanted more Tharks. I strongly suspect this is how I felt about the books as well, back when I read them. The Tharks were the main thing that made the series other than a Western that happened to be taking place on another planet, with some handwavium skiffy technology tossed in (the 9th Ray, etc.).

A friend of mine who works for a British company had to spend a few months in England at one time. Lucky woman, she was able to see David Tennant as Hamlet, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, live and in person. I had to wait for the DVD of the movie made about six months after the play’s run ended, and then make time to watch it when I was in the right mood for it. It was worth the wait. Patrick Stewart completely owned the role of Claudius, and Tennant’s Hamlet felt, to me, more like a real person than I was accustomed to in performances.
I chose a snowy afternoon after I’d been out and about in the cold. I made myself a large bowl of buttered popcorn and settled in to watch.

“Hamlet” was the first Shakespeare I ever saw live. I was in high school, and went to the theater on a class trip. I remember loving the swordfight at the end. Over the years, I’ve seen a couple of different movie versions in theaters: the Mel Gibson version from 1990 with Glenn Close as Gertrude, and the Kenneth Branagh full version from 1996. This new version is my current favorite, edging out the Branagh.

The play is performed in modern dress; for a good portion of it, David Tennant is barefoot with jeans and a t-shirt, or barefoot with a tuxedo. He’s a very physical actor, not just when he’s making Hamlet-is-crazy faces, but when he’s flinging himself around a room. The motion helped me to feel Hamlet’s turmoil, as if it was too much for his body to contain. Yet in other scenes, such as some of the soliloquies, he’s so still that the air seems to vibrate with tension instead. I think playing to a camera rather than an audience made a difference to me, because the camera could catch every nuance of expression, both physical and vocal. I strongly suspect those close-ups gave a very different feeling than the same speeches would have in live performance. Overall, the tension was incredible throughout. I kept realizing that I was leaning in close to the screen.

All the performances were excellent; of the actors that were new to me, I particularly liked Edward Bennett as Laertes. Coincidentally, I had seen him recently in the movie “War Horse.”

Rather than me going on and on, you can watch the movie online for yourself at PBS.org, and I think a few other locations.

The night after it opened, why do you ask? *blink, blink*
Dudes, I actually bought some issues of the original Ghost Rider comic back in the day. I didn’t see the first movie adaptation, though…didn’t even realize there had been one. My attention was drawn to this one by a really excellent trailer online, that was sort of like eating an entire bucket of Pop Rocks.

Here is my list of what I liked about this movie.

1. Idris Elba as Moreau.

2. The part where Ghost Rider pees fire. You get to see it twice.

3. Idris Elba. Wearing leather.

4. Violante Placido (Nadya), who gets to beat up some bad guys! Or at least make a good showing of it. She is the only woman in the entire film who isn’t an extra in a crowd scene. Hrrrmmm.

5. The long shot in which Nicholas Cage as Johnny Blaze is trying not to turn into Ghost Rider and he makes all kinds of wacktastic scenery-chewing faces while CGI pops out all over. The anticipatory wait for his head to burst into flame was pure cinematic gold.

6. Cameos by Anthony Stewart Head being smarmy and Christopher Lambert with writing all over his face. For non-geeks reading this, Head played Giles in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, who happened to be my favorite character on that show. Lambert is a French actor who played a Scotsman pretending to be an American antique dealer in the original Highlander. (The Scotsman playing an Ancient Egyptian who was pretending to be a Spaniard was Sean Connery. Keep up!)

7. The rather touching yet humorous scene in which Idris Elba Moreau gives communion to Johnny Blaze with stale bread, and Nicholas Cage’s delivery of the line about the bread. Also, seriously, I liked the artsy way they were posed as the camera retreated.

8. The giant earth-mover thingie after Ghost Rider set it on fire and used it to crush the bad guys. Overkill, yeah, but so is a guy with his head on fire.

9. The way the writers of the film licked the wacky poprocksicle and just let their cracktastic flags ripple in the flaming breeze because there was no saving this concept as a serious art house flick so you had to just lick it instead. Or something like that.

Watching Helen Mirren in “The Tempest” got me in the mood for more Shakespeare. I’ve loved Kenneth Branagh’s movie adaptations since his “Henry V,” which I saw in the theater four or five times, and I have been collecting his various Shakespeare movies on DVD. I hadn’t yet seen his 2006 version of “As You Like It,” so I obtained the DVD and watched it in one go.
This adaptation was very interesting visually; it was set late in the 19th century, when Japan had opened itself to outside trade, the idea being that these characters lived in one of the British trading outposts – there’s a little introductory commentary (“A Long Time Ago, in a galaxy far, far away….”) in the opening screens. This enabled a mingling of European costumes with Japanese ones. The only house shown in detail was a Japanese-style house with sliding paper walls. There are a few Asian actors in the production, including one of the couples in the Forest of Arden (Silvius and Celia). Charles the wrestler became a sumo wrestler (also an Asian actor). The sumo wrestler bit was amusing because Orlando, played by David Oyeluwo, is not particularly large next to the sumo wrestler, yet he has to win their bout. There was some close camera work obscuring how exactly Orlando managed it! There’s also a bit added before the beginning of the play, to show exactly how Frederick’s palace coup to depose his brother the Duke happens: he did it with ninjas.

I liked that Brian Blessed, with different hairstyles and demeanours, played both Frederick and the (real) Duke. I just love Brian Blessed in general, so this was an extra treat for me. I also got to see another favorite actor, Richard Briers, as Orlando’s servant Adam; his part in the movie is small, but he has one speech that just broke my heart. I surprised myself and teared up.

ADAM: Master, go on; and I will follow thee
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
From seventeen years till now almost four-score
Here lived I, but now live here no more.
At seventeen years many their fortunes seek,
But at fourscore it is too late a week;
Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
Than to die well and not my master’s debtor.

I think, if one hadn’t previously read the play, the movie might be a little confusing on first watch, but maybe I’m wrong; if you see it without reading the play first, let me know what you thought.

A lot of the text was cut, as is usual in movie versions of Shakespeare plays. I think some scenes are rearranged, to make the progression of events more clear (I am not that deeply familiar with the play). The whole thing seemed to go very fast, and had a nice flow to it, but I didn’t feel as involved with the subplots, even though all play into the Rosalind/Orlando romance.

I thought all of the performances were excellent (not really a surprise!). David Oyeluwo (Orlando) has the biggest range of emotions to portray, I think; I was with him all the way; he has one of those magnetic faces. (Many viewers know him from “Spooks/MI-5”; he’s currently starring in Red Tails, presumably playing an American.) Adrian Lester (a friend of mine loved him in “Hustle”) played his brother, which leads to a sort of Shakespeare in-joke, because Oyeluwo has played Henry VI on stage and Lester has played Henry V…okay, not brothers, but I think it’s amusing. In a geeky way. Lester is also in Branagh’s movie version of “Love’s Labours Lost,” which I should watch again and write about, because it is one wacky adaptation; the play was made into a musical. With dancing. No, really.

Alfred Molina is, unsurprisingly, really good as Touchstone. Kevin Kline won a SAG award for his portrayal of Jaques, according to Wikipedia. Bryce Dallas Howard, an American, played Rosalind. To my American ear, the accent she used was not offensive. She, too, had a very interesting, magnetic face.

Overall, I recommend this, at least if you like Shakespeare! If you do watch it, make sure to stick around for the Epilogue, which was kind of cool.

One comment about the DVD: I was very disappointed in the limited extras. The accompanying documentary was more of a teaser; I don’t think it was even a half-hour long.

When I first heard that there was to be a movie of Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” with Helen Mirren playing the lead role (Prospera rather than Prospero), I nearly screamed with excitement. That was before it actually came out in theaters, and it turned out I wasn’t able to go and see it. As soon as the DVD was available for pre-order, I pre-ordered. And waited. And waited, as the release was delayed time and again. Finally it arrived, and finally I had a free evening to sit down and absorb it.
I loved so many things about this movie, Helen Mirren in the lead role first among them. She was so strong and powerful, so very believable as a middle-aged woman who wielded mighty forces of magic, who loved and wanted the best for her daughter, who was both arrogant and wise, who made mistakes. She gave me chills. I couldn’t look away. Also, her outfits were awesome.

The main difference the cross-gender casting made in the play was in Prospera’s background; Taymor added in a bit about how her husband was Duke, then she was made Duke in his place, so her later betrayal by the other heir had added resonance: she was a woman who earned power, which was then taken away by accusations of, basically, using her femininity/magic to gain power unnaturally. I think the cross-gender casting also made a difference in her relationship with Miranda. A same-sex parent/child relationship has a different feel to it; I got the feeling Prospera was trying to save Miranda from suffering at the hands of patriarchy in the same way she suffered (true, by marrying her off to some random wet guy…).

I thought all of the performers were amazing, with the exception of Reeve Carney. He played Ferdinand, who seemed impossibly low-key and bland in comparison to the other actors; in the accompanying documentary, I found out he was a singer rather than an actor, which makes sense. He was simply overpowered. In all of his scenes with Felicity Jones, who played Miranda, I was fixated on her and could barely remember to look at him. He did a lovely job with his singing, though!

My favorite performers, after Mirren, were Ben Whishaw as Ariel and Djimon Hounsou as Caliban. Both men wonderfully embodied the otherworldly aspects of their characters. It’s true there were a lot of special effects surrounding Ariel, but the actor’s face and voice and especially how he used his body were a big part of how I experienced the character. He was especially deft in showing hints of emotion between Ariel and Prospera. Hounsou as Caliban had a lot of wacky body and face makeup, but I think he would have been fine without it, because he did so much with his body and voice to show Caliban’s complex, twisted mess of loneliness and ambition and pain. Also, I really like Hounsou’s speaking voice.

The movie was filmed on a small island in Hawaii, very cool since the play itself takes place on an island. The landscape, especially the vistas of cracked lava rock, had an eerie, bleak feel that I loved each time that the cameras returned to it. It became part, in my mind, of Prospera’s bleak, revenge-driven emotional landscape, tempered only by her love for her daughter.

Some viewers might find some of the special effects silly at times (they were low-budget). I didn’t mind them. To me, they were fine if not state-of-the-art (the Ariel water effects were more than fine!). It was the actors’ performances that were important to me, and I found they were utterly worth the wait.

I’ve never read the novel War Horse by Michael Morpurgo; all of my comments are based on the Spielberg movie. I imagine the novel is a much different experience, because it allows for narration from the horse’s point of view. In the movie, the horse is not given a voice.

As someone who’s done a lot of reading about World War One, I really enjoyed the visuals of this movie, particularly the trenches and No Man’s Land. Some of it looked so familiar, I suspect I’ve seen some of the research photos that were used. In particular, I liked how accurately the British and German trenches were differentiated. In general, the German trenches were larger, better-constructed, and more comfortable; this is clearly shown in a scene during the Somme offensive when the lead character, Albert, makes it into a German trench before being gassed.

One of the small early tanks made it into the movie. I wish I’d had a better look at the 1918-style grenades that were used in the Somme scenes. I was also pleased that a few colonial soldiers were shown in one scene, and quite a few female nurses in a hospital scene, though only two women had any sort of role in the story (Albert’s mother Rosie and a French girl named Emily).

I noted that when soldiers were executed for desertion, and when horses were shown hauling heavy artillery, the perpetrators in both cases were German, despite the British doing the same thing; ditto the early failed attempts at cavalry charges, which both sides briefly thought would be effective. Since the story was fictional, I assumed this was the British author’s choice. At another section of the movie, the German soldiers steal/commandeer foodstuffs and other useful items from a French family. It’s not stated if this farm was part of the lands they occupied in northern France and Belgium (which were eventually pillaged of pretty much everything) or lands they only held temporarily. In 1914, territory shifted more rapidly. Anyway, I found that scene had a very realistic feel, after reading several books about life in the occupied territory. The forced labor seemed accurate to me, as well.

I thought it was accurate when Albert is shown in a regiment with other men from Devon in 1918; it’s not clear when he joined up, but it might have been in the period when groups from the same town, or the same club, were encouraged to go to war together in the “Pals” regiments (often with tragic results if a single regiment was decimated).

So far as the story goes, I confess I found it a bit melodramatic, full of miraculous coincidences; but then again, the literature surrounding WWI is full of strange and miraculous events, as people attempted to make some kind of sense of the carnage, of why some people survived and others died.

The central conceit of the story, that Joey, a horse from Devon, makes his way through a whole range of danger on both sides of the conflit before again meeting with his beloved partner, Albert, is a sort of wish-fulfillment, at least for Albert; most of the other people who come into possession of Joey end up dead. I suspect those who watch this movie (or read the book) are expected to feel an emotional reward as, despite all the war’s horror, at least one thing is eventually put right. I found that I couldn’t feel that sort of emotion; perhaps coming to the story as an adult was the culprit, or perhaps that I’d read too many real stories of WWI that did not end happily to believe in this one, even for a few moments. I found it interesting that Albert’s father is a veteran of the Boer War, and still suffers from his experiences as well as the wound he suffered; is he meant to be an indicator that war leads only to pain and futility? I am wondering how different the film is from the movie, so far as themes go.

The day after I saw the movie, I began to think about its theme. Albert, as protagonist, doesn’t actually do much beyond train Joey and plow a field (important as that act was to his family). True, he’s shown in the Somme offensive rescuing a comrade and tossing a grenade into a machine-gun nest, but those actions felt to me like required acts of heroism, a bit rote, despite the actor’s excellent portrayal of Albert’s terror and desperation. Albert goes to France in search of Joey; but he would have eventually been drafted and sent anyway. Albert is reunited with Joey; but the actions of others enable him to actually take the horse home with him. Perhaps all that was meant to be the point; it isn’t the acts of individuals, but the collective good that is important. Individuals die (all over the place, in this movie!) but love survives. Albert isn’t rewarded with his horse because of his acts on the battlefield, but because he and Joey have a bond of love.

Overall, I enjoyed the film and was glad I saw it.

Postscript: what the hell was up with the orange filtering on the final scene? I got that it was meant to be the light of sunset, but…it was more like somebody had applied a bad fake tan to the screen.

This post contains spoilers. Also ranting about stuff that irritated me, and getting far too intellectual, and probably getting incoherent along the way.

I saw Cowboys and Aliens earlier this week, and though on some levels I enjoyed it (beautifully choreographed violence, Daniel Craig’s exceptional physique and the liberal display thereof) on many other, thoughtful, levels, I disliked it. Deep engagement is what I want in a movie, both visual and emotional, everything on a larger scale because of the larger screen. I felt this movie had plenty of spectacle but no real emotion, plus it bothered me with some of its sociopolitical implications.

Possibly my expectations were too high. The filmmakers no doubt wanted to make a cheesetastic blockbuster in which Things Blew Up Real Good. Emotional conflict/depth is apparently not required for that. But without emotional connection, I feel there’s no point. Worse, the shallow images of Hollywood insta-romance made me feel as if I had been condescended to. “Let’s give the girls something besides those shots of Daniel Craig with his shirt off!”

I read the original graphic novel sometime ago. I didn’t think it was Great Art, Now Sullied By Hollywood; the original story had many of the same problems as the movie. I don’t plan to discuss the graphic novel much in this review, however, other than to note that its two main female characters were at least more active. In the movie, those two were combined into one, and the green one became a white woman. Anybody surprised?
Other things I don’t plan to discuss much: the actual historicity of this film (Hel-lo, Collared and Buttoned Shirts of the Future!); accuracy of the portrayed Chiricahua culture about which I do not know anything relevant (that guy to the right is a Chiricahua Apache named Bakeitzogie); or why Clancy Brown’s characters never seem to survive to the end of a movie. However, if you do want the joy of nitpicking the history, go check out veejane’s awesome post. I’ll wait.

What I’d like to talk about is the overwhelming, err, thrust of the film. It was all about Dick. Who is Dick? Dick is…when every important character is male, except for one, because one active female character is “female characters.” When hunting and killing is constantly privileged over everything else and violence is the only solution to a problem, and those things are equated with The Only Correct Way to Be a Man. When action is substituted for emotion. And when there is a very long, very big rocketship buried deep in mother earth, pillaging its people with creepy wavy tentacles and sucking up its golden nectar. No, wait, that’s hentai. This is a Dick Flick. Anyway.

Much as I appreciated the male pulchritude on display throughout, I didn’t like anybody in this film, except Ned, and that wasn’t because Ned was a guy I would normally have admired–for one thing, he was deluded in his hero-worship of his emotionally stunted foster “father”–but because Adam Beach, who played him, to me was the only character who consistently demonstrated some sort of human connection with other humans, in that very misguided attachment. (I think that might actually be a result of Beach’s acting ability and emotive power rather than anything in the script.)

The lack of connection, across all of the characters, destroyed the movie for me. The entire plot was about overpowering, taking, using, when movies I love tend to feature disparate people learning to work together, even form a new family. True, in this movie the humans do end up working together: townies, cowboys, Chiricahua Apache, and bandits; but I didn’t get any sense of emotional connections being formed, or social change about to happen. They bonded together to attack the aliens and kill them…with rifles, spears, long sticks of dynamite. Even the round alien bracelet that could shoot down an alien ship had to be clasped around a muscular, extended arm before it could fire.

All that was…okay. It’s hardly a new thing for me to go to see a movie and conclude it’s a Dick Flick. Almost all movies are: financed by men, made by men, starring men and, shockingly, aimed at a male audience. It was the pretense that annoyed me most, the pretense that there was more to this movie than Dick. For instance, in the movie’s epilogue, some of the characters are shown to have learned a few rote lessons about family by killing a bunch of aliens. I felt like I was supposed to be happy about this – “aww, how sweet!” I wasn’t. None of those character changes convinced me they would be lasting, because I hadn’t seen enough of the characters before that point to register a change.

A fair amount of (alleged) characterization was given to Harrison Ford’s character, Woodrow Dolarhyde, and Ford did a good job of acting what he was given, at least in the individual scenes. In my opinion, though, what he was given did not hang together from scene to scene in a way that made sense emotionally (or, possibly, at all). I never felt I understood or empathized with his character, or cared about him in the least. I wasn’t even sure what the moviemakers wanted me to feel, though I suspect I was supposed to admire his manly behavior. I didn’t. Despite his being played by Harrison Ford. If Harrison Ford couldn’t make me like that character, or at least like watching him…. I would have been more satisfied if Dolarhyde had been simply a villain. That would have felt less manipulative and half-baked.
The two main male characters, Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) and Dolarhyde, both led by violence and neither one was a nice guy. I would have been okay with their characterizations revolving around that. That would have felt true. Instead, “romance” was ineffectually smeared here and there, as if a toddler was applying makeup. Was that supposed to pretty up the film for female viewers?

Lonergan was a successful bandit before being abducted by the aliens and losing his memory; Dolarhyde ruled his cattle empire with a cruel hand. Neither is shown to be capable of a significant relationship. Dolarhyde’s wife is never mentioned; I presumed she was dead. His relationship with his biological son, based on power rather than affection, is demonstrably not working. Lonergan apparently left banditry after he fell in love with a prostitute, but the movie fails when it tries to relate their relationship; she is only a ghost, with only a couple of lines. There’s no real indication of the depth of their romance and how it changed (or didn’t change) Lonergan’s life. Without knowing how he changed in the past, it was difficult to see how he might change in the future. Lonergan’s subsequent “romance” with Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) is evanescent, a collection of movie-romance cues rather than actual emotional connection. They do not have one significant conversation that is not related to overcoming the aliens.

Given that Ella is an alien, who’s taken a form similar to Lonergan’s dead love, I could buy that she is actually manipulating him through the illusion of romance so he will do what she wants. But the movie doesn’t give any indication of that. Their relationship just looks like standard Hollywood movie insta-attraction.

Then there are the invading aliens. In the graphic novel, the aliens talked. One of the two female characters was the same sort of alien who was trying to help the humans out, rather than a different species as in the movie (if I remember correctly). In the movie, the aliens were monsters. They didn’t speak, even with subtitles; they only growled and snarled. They sprang out at odd moments to make the viewers jump in their seat. They vivisected humans to find out how they worked and, in case the viewer didn’t get how awful this was, Lonergan finds a pile of spectacles and pocket watches that have been stolen from the dead humans for their gold content, in what seemed like a fairly direct reference to the Holocaust. (I squirmed. That one visual felt really inappropriate to me.) The aliens were there to be an enemy, and to be killed without remorse.

The humans were there to kill. Killing became the apotheosis of their character development. Nobody seemed to feel any conflict over this. That’s not an ethical complaint, not wholly. It’s my complaint because lack of conflict is boring. Again, I felt condescended to, because this huge expensive movie was expecting me to be satisfied with mere shallow spectacle.

The filmakers should have just gone with the violence. Daniel Craig’s Lonergan, seemingly effortlessly, projected lethality and moved as if violence equals art. He was beautiful to watch, but brutal. If the filmakers had simply embraced this brutality, that might have worked better than trying to give him a gooey center that felt false to me. It’s possible he gives up killing at the end of the movie (there are flowers and a hummingbird! …yeah) but…maybe not. He’s awfully good at being violent. He left his criminal life for a woman, but in his one scene with her, he’s just stolen to provide for her, and is angry when she rejects the money. Not much of a reformation, and it turns out to be only a step on his road to further violence.

The one child character, Emmett Taggart, achieves his character change (if it counts) by stabbing an alien that is attacking him. Doc (Sam Rockwell) begins the movie as a frustrated man who has little self-confidence and can’t believe in his wife’s love for him; however, once he learns to shoot and blows an alien’s brains out with a shotgun, he’s empowered. Ned achieves his goal, Dolarhyde’s acknowledgement, through dying violently on his behalf. And the one female character who has an active role, Ella, sacrifices herself to destroy the alien ship.

The thing that bothered me most, I think, is the way the movie tried to remove ethical considerations from the violence; there could have been so much more conflict, so much more depth, but those things were squashed at every turn.

The humans are forced to defend themselves from monsters. They aren’t allowed to agonize. Even the peaceful Doc has no qualms about going after the aliens, to rescue his wife. Without ethical conflict, I just didn’t care about the outcome. I was unable to emotionally invest in it.

Overall, despite all the explosions and monsters leaping out at me, that lack made the whole movie feel hollow. Hollywood, don’t condescend to me. If you’re not going to make art with your whole heart, with truth? Don’t make it at all.